..Perhaps they could calm themselves by trying to come up with a list of those among the NRA's 5,000,000 members who have committed mass murders...

A rather silly response, even for you.

One could substitute the words 'car drivers' for NRA members and it would be equally pointless.

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It’s good to see that we’re keeping the level of debate above that of ad hominem comments.

You made a sarcastic reference to Dana Loesch’s video for the NRA; l pointed out that - as far as l’m aware - no NRA member has ever committed a mass murder. A response which l consider to be entirely relevant.

You then introduce car drivers as a comparison; a gambit which, l confess, has left me utterly baffled. Perhaps you’d be good enough to elucidate?

My point was that the NRA is an organization that makes a very good income from it's members.
I don't see anyone saying that one should trawl the NRA membership to find out how many are mass murderers. But with a membership of 5 million the odds are there will be at least one.
The NRA are in the business of ensuring that as many guns as possible are available to anyone who can get them.
And they misuse the 2Nd Amendment to promote this. They provide funds to politicians who they think will further their cause and they vehemently oppose anyone who would restrict gun ownership.

The reference to car drivers is that there are millions of law abiding car drivers who do not kill anyone throughout their whole driving career. Coming up with a list of those who unfortunately have would be of equal value to your suggestion of a list of NRA members who have killed.

I confess, all the terminology and classifications of firearm can get confusing to a non-shooting layman. Somebody posted the following as a possibly suitable armament for the specialist armed-teachers that are being proposed, but I don't even know what category it is.

My point was that the NRA is an organization that makes a very good income from it's members.
I don't see anyone saying that one should trawl the NRA membership to find out how many are mass murderers. But with a membership of 5 million the odds are there will be at least one.
The NRA are in the business of ensuring that as many guns as possible are available to anyone who can get them.
And they misuse the 2Nd Amendment to promote this. They provide funds to politicians who they think will further their cause and they vehemently oppose anyone who would restrict gun ownership.

The reference to car drivers is that there are millions of law abiding car drivers who do not kill anyone throughout their whole driving career. Coming up with a list of those who unfortunately have would be of equal value to your suggestion of a list of NRA members who have killed.

No value at all.

I hope this clears it up.

The sad thing is that nothing will change.

INT21

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The NRA is actually a non-profit organization.

You said:The NRA are in the business of ensuring that as many guns as possible are available to anyone who can get them.

And you know this how? If that were true, I would not be a member of them. Their position is quite clear. They want the rights of responsible, law-abiding people to have guns respected. That's a bit different than what you say we do.

You said:And they misuse the 2Nd Amendment to promote this.

Really? All we say is that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, instead of the 'collective right' nonsense that gun-control advocates have promoted since Miller. How does this 'misuse' the Second Amendment?

You said:They provide funds to politicians who they think will further their cause and they vehemently oppose anyone who would restrict gun ownership.

This is a bit misleading, although, to give you credit, I don't think you intend it so; you are simply repeating what you believe. The fact is that the NRA supports a more complete NICS (National Instant Check System). As has been said, this system operates under a severe disadvantage because of two factors: the disqualifying records are not complete, and/or individuals such as Cruz are allowed too many 'second chances' and as a result are never put in the NICS database.

The point has been made over here that only a minority of US states and other responsible parties have sent all of their data into NICS. Two glaring examples of this are Dylan Roof, whose conviction for drug use was not entered and he purchased the pistol that he used in the Charleston church shooting, and Devin Kelley the Sutherland Springs shooter whose conviction for assault and domestic violence were never entered into NICS by the US Air Force, which the air force was required by law to do.

The NRA actually supports laws that would mandate the turning over of all relevant records to NICS.

What the NRA opposes are laws that prohibit large groups of guns based on their use in mass shootings. When Obama praised Australia's laws after Port Arthur, he was praising their law that in effect mandated the sale of registered firearms to the government. Granted the owners were compensated, but it still took hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people's guns away from them.

Australia and the UK are American gun-owner's worst nightmares, because there are many people who want the same thing to happen here.

...Granted the owners were compensated, but it still took hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people's guns away from them...

But the aim of drastically reducing the number of guns was achieved.

To go back to an earlier example of mine. If I lose my driving license, it doesn't stop me driving. Just means I would be driving illegally.
And if my car was taken from me and I wanted to drive someplace. Maybe to rob a shop or something, I would (if I was so inclined) simply steal someone else's to use. This would have the advantage of me not needing to worry about the car being traced back to me.

With more guns than people in the US it is relatively easy for a criminal to obtain one if he/she wishes to. No need to buy a legitimate one.
All the data you collect on those who purchase them will help, but you can't tell who is going to go mad.
And isn't 'profiling' frowned upon ? And you can buy, at an age when teenagers are quite volatile, a mass killing machine, but not a beer.

So the more guns you remove the harder it becomes for people to illegally obtain them. The legal owners are not so much a problem in themselves until they either flip and kill someone (often a relative) or have their guns taken from them by people of ill intent.

There seems to be an underlying problem in the American psyche that will not let this 18th Century thinking go.

No one is going to attack you except your own people. And this is the crux of my argument. That, as a nation. you are afraid of your selves. Particularly the guy next door. It's a form of mass paranoia.

Wasn't the Second Amendment intended for use by States to raise militia ? Possibly against your own Federal Government.

Oddly you have no problem when abroad. which goes to prove my point.

..The fact is that the NRA supports a more complete NICS (National Instant Check System)..

But I am given to understand that this does not apply to guns sold in 'gun fairs'. Is this correct.

...You said:The NRA are in the business of ensuring that as many guns as possible are available to anyone who can get them.

And you know this how?..

It does seem intent on blocking almost every attempt that anyone presents to reduce the number of guns available.
Even a simple thing like banning the bump stock is anathema to them.

My approach is seen by some as draconian. I would have every gun registered by owner, location, source and serial number on a nation wide data base. And periodically every record would be checked. And woe betide the person named on the record if the gun wasn't there.

But I am also in favor of every computer having a back door that allows the authorities to locate it if necessary. They would need very good reason, but I think it would be a useful tool.

Don't worry, it isn't going to happen; or it already has on the newer machines and no one is saying.

I confess, all the terminology and classifications of firearm can get confusing to a non-shooting layman. Somebody posted the following as a possibly suitable armament for the specialist armed-teachers that are being proposed, but I don't even know what category it is.

It can be. And the side taking the most advantage of this is the politicians who promote their proposal as the be-all and end-all solution to the problem. There ain't no such animal people.

What I find galling is that these were used as excuses to pass laws that had no relevance to the case in point. As an example, there were calls for universal background checks after the Charleston shooting, the San Bernardino incident and the Pulse Night Club killings. Yet in each one of these the murderer had passed the check. Indeed, in the Orlando murders, the killer had a job as a security person and was licensed to carry his gun. These instances tell me that the politicians will use any excuse they can to pass their pet scheme.

And then you have writers of fiction promoting the silliest ideas as well. Stephen King is a good example of this. In his book The Stand, he tells of a character who has a revolver knocked out of his hand by a chair. The impact was followed by the revolver discharging, presumably by an involuntary muscle contraction. All right, so far we are good. But when the revolver is dropped, it discharges again. Would anyone care to venture a guess why the second discharge is impossible?

King is one of my favorite writers, but he is full of beans when it comes to guns. The Stand is by far my favorite King book, and I have read all three versions of it many times and have the ABC mini-series made in 1994. Even with all this, the book is full of errors not only on guns, but in general. I did a much better job self-editing my book The Pale Horse, going through it with the proverbial fine-tooth comb searching for errors and inconsistencies.

My point is this: King did a piece calling for restrictions on so-called assault rifles, and if he is as ignorant of guns as The Stand indicates that he is, why should we not take him as another hack that doesn't know his butt from a hole in the ground?

Australia and the UK are American gun-owner's worst nightmares, because there are many people who want the same thing to happen here.

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We know it's not going to happen but in a more ideal world, what would be so terrible about say a more restricted UK style gun regime? Those who want to have weapons to shoot game or targets can do so. Maximus on this forum for example. The general public don't have guns. As a result we don't have so many shootings. Why would that be your worst nightmare?

We know it's not going to happen but in a more ideal world, what would be so terrible about say a more restricted UK style gun regime? Those who want to have weapons to shoot game or targets can do so. Maximus on this forum for example. The general public don't have guns. As a result we don't have so many shootings. Why would that be your worst nightmare?

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Substitute “free speech” for “guns” in that paragraph and see how it reads.

We know it's not going to happen but in a more ideal world, what would be so terrible about say a more restricted UK style gun regime? Those who want to have weapons to shoot game or targets can do so. Maximus on this forum for example. The general public don't have guns. As a result we don't have so many shootings. Why would that be your worst nightmare?

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Many of you in the UK don't really care that much about guns so you can afford to be, shall we say, cavalier, about those of us that do. What's the big deal? you seem to ask. It's just guns. Right? This reminds me of the quote by German Pastor Martin Niemöller.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Now, lest some here think I am a paranoid obsessing about black helicopters and the New World Order, I am not. In fact, I think most conspiracy theories are rather silly. But please think about this: once the push to give up basic rights starts, where does it end?

Self defense, I think we would all agree, is such a right. And yet, without the means of exercising the right, it is meaningless, nothing more than a pious platitude designed to placate the public. Here in the US, I agree; it is not going to happen. Guns, for better or for worse are here to stay, even semi-automatic arms. And even in the so-called liberal states, such as New York, California and Connecticut, all of which which passed laws restricting semi-auto rifles, the non-compliance rate is extremely high. The reason is simple: the owners see what happened after Hungerford and Port Arthur, and they realize that if the government doesn't know about their rifles, it is much harder to take them away.

And that is the point. Over here, people are very resistant to the idea of gun confiscation like what happened in the UK and Australia, especially if they have done nothing wrong.

Getting back to my point about basic rights; why not do away with the right to trial by jury? After all, the people who would use this right are mostly criminals already. Just think how much safer that would make us. Or, if that is not the right that is suitable for the scrap heap (for now), how about religious liberty? After all, isn't one religion implicated in much of the terrorism sweeping Europe or the US? No? I have it! Freedom of the press!! Yes, that's the ticket, isn't it? After all we can't trust the media, therefore we must pass laws that mandate only the Truth shall be disseminated. Who defines the Truth? Why bother with small trivial details like that when the public must be protected?

Now, I will state what I hope would be obvious: the preceding paragraph is hyperbole, and is a deliberate exaggeration made to make a point. For the record, I don't advocate doing away with any of the rights that I mentioned.

But, by the same token, neither do I advocate giving up the right to arms.

Das Kapital and Mein Kampf, to quote just two examples, are both the product of the right to free speech. Had those works been suppressed and those ideas not been promulgated, scores of millions of people and their descendants would now be alive. See also the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mao's Little Red Book etc.

People exercising the right to free speech, and people trying to prevent others from exercising said right, kill or cause the death of multitudes every year. See Tiananmen Square, Muslim hate preachers and The Turner Diaries, partly responsible for Timothy McVeigh's radicalisation and bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City.

If guns are not the problem, and removing them will not solve the problem.

What, in your view, is the problem ? what fruit is further up the tree ?

INT21

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We would have to roll back a lot of the policies instituted since the early 1960s.
We'd have to reduce or eliminate the perverse incentives to breed children who grow up fatherless.
We'd have to firm up law and order, and introduce punishments that actually punished/deterred.
Loads of made-up medical conditions exculpating bad behaviour would have to be removed from the literature: Oppositional Defiant Disorder, indeed!
The media would have to end its practice of all but glorifying body counts and darkly idolising the mentally sick who inflict them.
The institution of marriage would have to be strengthened, with incentives to produce only kids who'd be cherished, valued and disciplined.
Schools would have to instil a lot more info about responsibilities and harp on less about rights.
We need earlier diagnosis of the mentally-disturbed, and quicker intervention.
Stop dishing out powerful psychoactive drugs to kids, especially little boys.

In this post in this very thread I posted a speculative checklist of the factors that I believed would be revealed when the most recent nutcase's background was checked. Here they are, verbatim:

Fractured family life.
Raised by mother/female relatives.
Diagnosis of ADD/ADHD or other fashionable initialism.Ritalin or similar meds prescribed.
Perceived bullying/marginalisation at school.
Escalation of disturbing posting on social media.
Peers ignore warning signs.
Illegal acquisition of firearm/s.

On the theme of discipline and punishment, it has now been revealed that Cruz escaped meaningful punishment for numerous offences which could and should have resulted in arrest and Federal convictions. This would have denied him the chance to obtain firearms legally. The policy was instituted by Broward County Sheriff's Office under Sheriff Israel:

"My innovative initiatives also helped keep children in school and out of jail, greatly expanding the juvenile civil citation program and making issuance of civil citations mandatory..."

Preamble: I'm not going to attach the same caveat to each of my posts, but of course any criticism in no way implies a sense of superiority or a belief that my own country is objectively 'better' because its possesses a different set of problems.

But please think about this: once the push to give up basic rights starts, where does it end?

[...]

Getting back to my point about basic rights; why not do away with the right to trial by jury? After all, the people who would use this right are mostly criminals already. Just think how much safer that would make us. Or, if that is not the right that is suitable for the scrap heap (for now), how about religious liberty? After all, isn't one religion implicated in much of the terrorism sweeping Europe or the US? No? I have it! Freedom of the press!! Yes, that's the ticket, isn't it? After all we can't trust the media, therefore we must pass laws that mandate only the Truth shall be disseminated. Who defines the Truth? Why bother with small trivial details like that when the public must be protected?

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The point that many would make is that in most of the civilised world gun ownership is not a right and certainly not a 'basic right'; the U.S. is a distant outlier, cursed by an accident of history and a veneration for old documents penned in a very different world.

Given the nation's troubled and somewhat miraculous birth--freedom seized from the teeth of adversity--it is understandable why the need to defend oneself and one's rights is so entrenched in the American psyche, but in truth the nation (and the world) has evolved to such a degree that the main threat against which one now has to defend oneself is one's fellow citizens who hold that entrenched mindset. When one sees the right to bear arms nestling alongside the right not to have troops billeted in one's property without one's consent, an objective observer would almost certainly realise that he was not looking at a modern document with natural application to a 21st century nation--and he certainly wouldnt use the phrase 'basic right' to describe either amendment.

I was going to say that the nation is 'stuck', but 'trapped' by its history seems more apposite.

And then you have writers of fiction promoting the silliest ideas as well. Stephen King is a good example of this. In his book The Stand, he tells of a character who has a revolver knocked out of his hand by a chair. The impact was followed by the revolver discharging, presumably by an involuntary muscle contraction. All right, so far we are good. But when the revolver is dropped, it discharges again. Would anyone care to venture a guess why the second discharge is impossible?

King is one of my favorite writers, but he is full of beans when it comes to guns. The Stand is by far my favorite King book, and I have read all three versions of it many times and have the ABC mini-series made in 1994. Even with all this, the book is full of errors not only on guns, but in general. I did a much better job self-editing my book The Pale Horse, going through it with the proverbial fine-tooth comb searching for errors and inconsistencies.

My point is this: King did a piece calling for restrictions on so-called assault rifles, and if he is as ignorant of guns as The Stand indicates that he is, why should we not take him as another hack that doesn't know his butt from a hole in the ground?

Be careful whence you get your information.

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I can see how having a working knowledge of the mechanics of how all guns function could be important when debating more nuanced regulations imposed on firearms. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to be implying that anyone without such knowledge has no valid opinion to offer on any gun regulation whatsoever.

I can see how having a working knowledge of the mechanics of how all guns function could be important when debating more nuanced regulations imposed on firearms. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to be implying that anyone without such knowledge has no valid opinion to offer on any gun regulation whatsoever.

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That's not quite what I'm saying. What I am saying is that people should be aware of what we Americans call the 'law of unintended consequences'. There are numerous example of this, but I'll just give a couple.

The 'Cop-Killer' bullet craze was one. This bit of hysteria was served up by NBC News on one of their 'White Papers'. There is a company in Ohio called KTW. KTW made ammunition that was designed for extreme penetration. It was made of tungsten with a coating of Teflon and was then put into a copper jacket to enable it to engage the handguns rifling.

I had heard of the KTW round several years prior to the NBC News piece because I had seen articles on it in my brother's police journals, extolling its superior ability to pierce barricades, auto bodies, etc. This was in the early 1970's (1972 or 1973) and the NBC piece came out in the early 1980's. NBC claimed in their White Paper that the KTW round had been designed to defeat the Kevlar vests that served police as soft body armor. There are three problems here: one was that KTW never sold their product to the general public but only to police and military agencies, and the second problem was the company's founders were two police officers and a coroner's investigator. The NBC claim that it was intended to defeat the police armor was thus demonstrably false because the KTW round was made by police for police. The third problem is that the KTW was made prior to police use of armor becoming widespread, so it could hardly have been designed to defeat Kevlar body armor because it pre-dated police body armor.

Bills were introduced to correct this 'problem' and the NRA opposed the bills. This opposition was widely-reported in the media and had the effect the media wanted, to wit; the made it look as though there was yet another group the NRA care nothing about and that was the police. The propaganda value this gave to the bill's proponents was immense. In addition to babies and little old ladies, the claim was advanced that the NRA now hated cops.

There was a problem however, and that was that in their zeal to correct what was in essence a non-existent problem* the reason for the NRA's opposition to these proposals was not explained: the way these bills were written, they would have banned nearly all ammunition used in rifles. Working quietly with friendly lawmakers, the bills in question were modified and the final bill passed with NRA support. BTW, that the NRA supported the final bill was not reported by the media.

One unintended consequence was that after the NBC piece aired, the number of police officers shot in the head increased.

One other bill I had told about before was Senator Boxer's "Junk Guns" proposal. The idea, as reported in the media, was to ban the sale of unsafe handguns. These guns were cheap guns made of pot metal that would be much more likely to blow up or something. They were unsafe, unreliable, inaccurate pieces of junk, whose sole virtue was their price. Hence the name of her bill. The determinant of junk gun status was the ATF sporting use formula, which used as the main criterion, the size of the gun. This stopped the importation of some very good quality guns made by Browning, and Walther among others.

Another curious thing I pointed out about Boxer's proposal was the exceedingly strange exception that the bill contained. Remember, these were cheap, unsafe, inaccurate unreliable guns. The exception was the police and the military alone had the right to buy and use unsafe unreliable, inaccurate pieces of junk. This exception showed the real purpose behind the bill; it was not aimed at unsafe guns as much as it was for guns suitable for concealed carry.

She relied on a willfully ignorant media to spin it her way. Hers was not so much ignorance as it was deliberate deception and the media came through for her like a champ.

So, good Dr_Baltar, while I can agree that opinions are valid, some come from gross ignorance as well. Please remember what I said about the law of unintended consequences.

*The reason I say it was a non-existent problem is because to the best of my knowledge, the number of police officers killed or wounded by 'cop-killer' ammunition is precisely zero.

Das Kapital and Mein Kampf, to quote just two examples, are both the product of the right to free speech. Had those works been suppressed and those ideas not been promulgated, scores of millions of people and their descendants would now be alive. See also the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mao's Little Red Book etc.

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Yes but we're talking about US guns & shootings now, not Germany in the 30s or China.

..The institution of marriage would have to be strengthened, with incentives to produce only kids who'd be cherished, valued and disciplined...

Love that one.

Both would-be parents to be at least 25 years old and to have at least under-grad' education.college
No criminal record, to be working since leaving college/university.
To have passed tests for defective sperm, sexual transmitter diseases, psychological stability tests.